


I Wished On The Moon For You

by stevergrsno (noxlunate)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2019, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Werewolf Courting, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-01 18:38:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19183471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlunate/pseuds/stevergrsno
Summary: “Holy shit,” Sam says, and thendelighted, “Holyshit.You look like my nana’s dog. This is incredible.”“Yeah, funny that, when they gave him the serum it only really worked on the human bits.” Bucky, whose reaction to Sam thus far has been standoffish at best, and like a wolf whose territory has been invaded at worst, soundsamused,theasshole.Steve growls a little.Or rather: A story in which Steve Rogers is the littlest werewolf who could and Bucky Barnes comes in from the cold and makes him his home.





	I Wished On The Moon For You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [majel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/majel/gifts).



> Hi, hello, and welcome! I've had so much fun participating in this bang and I'm so excited to finally be posting this thing!
> 
> Many thanks to my group chat (ya'll know who you are.) I know most of my you balk at sentimental emotional displays, but seriously, thank you for listening to me complain and providing very important answers to questions such as "should Bucky Barnes wear a sheer floral printed shirt in this?" 
> 
> I could write a million words of gratitude to my beta, [Deisderium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deisderium). You made my first experience having an actual beta instead of staring at my computer attempting to parse out where commas ACTUALLY belong so soooo painless. And also you're just great and I'm grateful to have ya around. 
> 
> And most importantly, the biggest of thank yous to my artist, [Majel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/majel). I was so lucky to get your artwork, partially because it was incredible and so entirely My Thing that it's ridiculous, but mostly because getting to chat with you and become your friend over the past few months has been such an amazing, unique experience. 
> 
> NOW THAT THAT'S OVER, onto the fic! Don't forget to go check out Majel's artwork for this [here on ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178026) aaand [here on tumblr!](https://itsmajel.tumblr.com/post/185560472438/i-wished-on-the-moon-for-you-caprbb-2019-art)

🐕🌙🐕🌙

When Bucky falls-

When Bucky falls, Steve feels it down into his bones, into his shattered heart, the place where pack and home used to be. He pours himself a drink, and then another, and then another, until he’s filled up with enough whisky he should have fallen over from alcohol poisoning _(should have fallen over the ledge with Bucky- should have fallen over instead.)_ Hell, he pours until he’s filled up with so much whiskey it could give a whole goddamn platoon alcohol poisoning.

Peggy finds him, because of course she does. She settles a delicate hand on his shoulders and pries a broken bottle from Steve’s hands. Tells him to give Bucky the respect of making his own goddamn choices. And Steve doesn’t cry because he ran out of tears too many bottles ago, but he does let himself fall into her arms like he’s shrunk in on himself and is that small, bird boned man he used to be all over again.  

She lets him, because there is no brighter star than Margaret Elizabeth Carter, but then she gently pulls away and tells him there’s a war to fight but maybe, maybe he should take the full moon off, just this once.

Steve listens.

The full moon isn’t a requirement, not really, at least not like the stories say, but the itch is always strongest when the moon is bright and full, and Steve finds a place to give into that, to let his wolf burst free and sink his paws into the soft dirt and leave the human world behind just for that little bit.

His mother always said it was important to let the wolf feel just as much as the human, that he couldn’t separate the two into neat little boxes, and Steve grasps onto that for just long enough to let the pull of the moon drag him into a shift, to shrink his bones and pull him apart and put him back together all over again.

It hits like a tidal wave.

Everything is simple.

And everything _fucking hurts._

The complications of war, the inability to go back and hunt for Bucky- to scour the ravine until he finds something, _anything,_ to take back home to Bucky’s ma evaporates like this. All that’s important is Bucky. _Finding_ Bucky. Running fast and far and finding home- family- Bucky- _pack._

 

When he wakes up the next morning, the sun is high and bright in the sky and Steve has run until he finds himself miles from camp.

 

Steve doesn’t follow the pull again.

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

When Steve comes back-

When he comes back the world is different.

Peggy is grey and withered, her hands gnarled and shaky in a way Steve couldn’t have imagined what feels like only weeks ago. The men he served with are dead or retired and settled in their old age, surrounded by family in a way that Steve can’t bear to intrude on. And Steve is-

Steve is _tired_.

He saves the world. He faces off against aliens and fights with Tony Stark and very narrowly avoids telling the government where to shove it. (His mother would be _so_ proud of his restraint.)

He accepts a job with SHIELD and goes on missions with Natasha, eats food in a shitty cafeteria surrounded by fellow agents, learns to work with the strike team, and watches full moons come and go while ignoring the pull and letting that itch build up.

 

He sees Bucky across a bridge, on a helicarrier, screaming that Steve is his mission above him, further and further away while Steve falls this time.

 

🐺⭐🐺⭐

 

When Steve- the _mission-_ Rogers, Steven Grant: threat level high- threat level _low to anyone who doesn’t goddamn deserve it-_ tactical mastermind, extremely skilled in close combat, enhanced- artist, shit talker, _goddamn know it all punk-_

When _Steve_ falls-

Bucky- The Asset- _whoever the fuck he is- who the fuck- who the hell even_ **_is_ ** _he?-_ falls too.

Later, at least, he’ll claim he fell too. Later, he will refuse to admit that really, it was more like he dived in after Steve’s dumb ass, still too fucked up to even realize exactly why he was doing it.

He spends too long staring at the man- the mission- _Steve-SteveSteve_ ** _Steve_** on the bank of the river, watching the jagged rise and fall of his chest and the sluggish flow of blood from wounds he put there.

He spends long enough that he can hear the roar of sirens approach and the crash of people through the brush as they search for survivors before he turns tail and runs.

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

When Bucky comes back-

When he shows up on Steve’s doorstep after leaving Steve on the banks of the Potomac and disappearing without a trace, it’s in his wolf form.

He’s soaking wet, thick coat of fur drenched and making him look pitiful, even with the metal front leg and the glare he’s fixing on Steve.

Bucky’s expression speaks about five different levels of _‘let me the fuck in Rogers,’_ and Steve is helpless to say no. Doesn’t _want_ to say no, not when it’s been ten months- four years- _almost a goddamn century_ since he’s seen Bucky.

“Get your ass in here, Buck,” Steve says, stepping backwards to let Bucky tromp past him, tracking wet water and mud into Steve’s living room, “Stay there while I get a towel, _jesus.”_

Bucky gives him a baleful look, but then his ears perk up, his gaze swinging around Steve’s apartment to take in every inch of it.

“Unless you want to go two legged for a while and do it yourself?” Steve asks, arching an eyebrow at Bucky where he’s already ignoring Steve’s order to stay still so that he doesn’t track mud everywhere.

Bucky gives a huff that’s answer enough and Steve disappears into his bathroom.

 

Steve takes a moment to hide in his bathroom and get his bearings. His hands grip the sink so hard he’s worried he might break it, and he stares at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t look as wide-eyed as he feels- as exhilarated and heartbroken, like something hollow suddenly filled up.

“He came home,” he whispers, and then again, like he needs to convince himself, “ _He came home.”_

 

Because Bucky is there. In his living room. A _wolf,_ sure, but still _there,_ smelling like pack and looking like home. And Steve hadn’t had to go chasing after him or hunt him down until he relented to come home. Steve had wanted to, had honestly planned on tracking him down and dragging him back kicking and barking, but then things had happened and Avengers work had sprung up and taken priority and it had given him enough time to realize it wouldn’t work. He couldn’t track a ghost, not even if he’d been able to shift again and use his nose to track him down across the ends of the earth.

There’s a thump against Steve’s door before he can sink into his head too much, a little muffled half-huffing half-barking noise, and Steve can hear the _‘Hey Steve,_ _get your ass out here,’_ that Bucky might say if he had vocal cords to do it with.

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” he gripes, grabbing a stack of towels and swinging the door open.

Steve’s carpet is covered in muddy paw prints and wet spots where Steve is going to assume Bucky decided to roll around in an effort to get some of the water off of him. Mud and water are flung to the far ends of  the room from shaking it off.

In the middle of it all, Bucky stands, looking far too smug, tongue lolling like he hasn’t done a damn thing wrong.

“You’re helping me clean this up,” Steve informs Bucky firmly and Bucky seems to shrug as much as a wolf possibly can before trotting over for Steve to go at him with the towels, roughing up his fur with one, then switching it out with another until he’s at least semi-dry.

It’s not perfect, Bucky’s got too much fluff for a towel to completely dry it all, but it’ll have to do.

“You gonna shift so we can actually have a conversation?” Steve tries next, tossing the towels vaguely in the direction of the bathroom to deal with later.

Bucky tilts his head, watching Steve, then turns and jumps onto Steve’s couch, curling up and giving a very exaggerated yawn before settling his head on his front paws and closing his eyes pointedly.

“I’ll take that as a no then.”

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

When Steve wakes up Bucky is still there, his body curled into a ball of fluff on the opposite side of Steve’s bed, breathing calm and steady in his sleep.

Steve squints at the bright red digital numbers of the clock on his bedside table, the **_03:34 AM_ ** vivid in the darkness of the room.

Without thinking too hard he closes the distance between them in the bed, curls his large body around Bucky’s wolf, planting his face smack dab in the middle of the tuft of fur at the back of Bucky’s neck. He breathes in the scent of _pack_ and _home_ and _Bucky,_ and almost before he can even think of how nice it is, he’s asleep.  

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

Having Bucky back is great.

_Really._

It _is._

It’s just that after three days where Bucky is still refusing to leave his wolf form while still managing to communicate clearly his judgement for Steve’s cooking, cleaning skills, and taste in entertainment, it gets a little exhausting.

Steve’s tried tackling the subject a few different ways. He’s tried going at it the obvious way, asking Bucky to just change back so that they can have a damn conversation, _please,_ and he’s tried a more subtle approach, pointing out how nice his shower is or that there’s a great coffee place just downstairs that Bucky would probably _love,_ and so far, nothing has worked. Bucky stubbornly sticks to his wolf form, pacing the perimeter of Steve’s apartment like a watchdog or napping the day away while getting a truly excessive amount of brown fur all over Steve’s furniture.

So maybe it’s understandable that Steve snaps a little bit. He’s just never- not for as long as he lives- going to understand why the sudden burst of emotion is strong enough to leave him staring up at his apartment from the floor with everything seeming _so much bigger._

Bucky, who seems startled at first when Steve ends up on all fours, confused by the sudden change of the world around him, is doing the closest a wolf can manage to _laughing_ at him.

God though, it feels so good to be shifted again and Steve can’t resist the urge to plant his front paws down in front of him and stretch all the way up through his tail before giving a mighty shake. There's the urge to run, to play, to bite at Bucky's leg because he's _angry at him-_ everything made so much simpler in this form, somehow easier to handle but somehow also all the more _clear_.

It's the reason he's avoided this very thing since Bucky died.

The wolf is still him of course, still smart, but it sees things differently. It's simultaneously too easy to handle and too _clear_ how much everything fucking _hurts_ without Bucky.

Steve bounds across his living room and butts his head into Bucky's front leg. _Hard._ It’s part reaction to Bucky’s refusal to _fucking shift already_ so they can communicate, and part frustration over too many years without him.

Bucky, despite Steve’s _clear admonishment_ seems particularly amused by Steve, eyes bright and ears relaxed and easy as he lifts one massive paw and settles it between his shoulders, pushing down until Steve huffs and lays down. Then, Bucky makes a little circle around him and flops down, curled up around Steve like he has a million times.

He bumps his nose against Steve’s and then, very pointedly, closes his eyes and plops his head down on top of Steve.

Steve’s tempted to be spiteful, but really, it’s comfortable, and he hasn’t been able to do this in _years,_ so he falls asleep easily, tucked up into Bucky.

 

Steve wakes up hours later. He’d shifted back sometime in his sleep and all the sore parts of him he hadn’t even realized he had feel new again.

Bucky, however, is still painfully wolf-shaped, nose resting on crossed paws, eyes barely cracked open as he watches Steve.

“I _need_ you to change back,” Steve says, just tired enough, his wolf just close enough under the surface to let his walls down, twisting his fingers through the long tufts of fur on Bucky’s sides and getting a good grip on him, “This isn’t- _Bucky-_ C’mon. You gotta- I can’t _do this._ I gotta _talk_ to you.”

He doesn’t know if it’s the begging, or if the way his voice cracks on the words, or if maybe Bucky’s just finally ready, but there’s the ripple of fur and skin- muscle and bone, beneath his hands, and then there’s _Bucky._ Bucky who is whole and human shaped and a little rough around the edges with scruff on his jaw and tangles in his hair that Steve has the sudden _desperate_ urge to brush out, but still _Bucky._

“You’re _back_ ,” Steve says, feeling a little like he’s been scraped raw, every bit of him exposed to Bucky in those two words.

“Yeah, pal,” Bucky’s voice is rough like he hasn’t had much use for it lately, but still familiar, “I guess I am.”

 

 

🐺⭐🐺⭐

 

The thing that Bucky’s not sure he can ever explain to Steve - not currently, not in a way that makes _sense-_ is that he’s not sure why exactly he decided to come home. Every little bit of Bucky had missed Steve from the moment he got the memory of him back, but he’d been in his wolf form from the moment he’d ended up outside the Smithsonian, a rush of memories swirling in his head, making no sense and crushing him with their enormity.

The wolf is easier.

The wolf says _eat, sleep, run, play._

The wolf also says _pack, home, connection,_ and equates that to _Steve,_ which is how he’d ended up on Steve’s doorstep in the first place.

And he’s happy to be back. _God, is he happy to be back._ He’s missed Steve for the last 70 odd years like an aching wound he hadn’t even realized he had, and Steve’s presence seems to settle some of the restless parts of him that feel more soldier than man these days, the parts that still feel calmer with a gun in hand than with one of the stupid fancy bagels Steve keeps bringing him like an offering.

It’s just that everything else outside of the initial gut punch of memories when he’d been staring at his own damn face in a museum has been coming back in dribs and drabs- stops and starts- and while he’s got this bone-deep knowledge that Steve is his best friend, is the one piece of pack he’s got left, there’s not a lot outside of that that brought him here.

And how the hell are you supposed to explain that shit to someone else? To the person who _literally_ knows you better than you know yourself?

He imagines saying it, imagines saying ‘Sorry pal, I had to learn your birthday from the wall of the Smithsonian and I still don’t know either of our mother’s names. I’m not the same man you remember. I’m not _your_ Bucky anymore, and who the hell knows if I ever will be.’

He imagines the soft look of devastation on Steve’s face. The way his jaw would firm like he’s swallowing down whatever he’s really feeling. The way some distant part of Bucky’s memory recalls, but the way he can’t quite put a pinpoint on what’s attached to it.

He imagines all of that and then he doesn’t say a damn thing.

Instead, he smiles back at Steve’s stupid smile every time, until at some point in the weeks since he came back to Steve’s his face remembers how to do it right and Steve’s eyes crinkle around the corners like maybe he’s noticed.

 

🐺⭐🐺⭐

 

There comes a day when Steve looks up from the phone that’s been buzzing repeatedly, making a siren noise that makes the part of Bucky that sometimes feels a little stuck between human and wolf want to tuck his ears back against his head and bare his teeth.

Steve sets his jaw, like he’s bracing for something, and then says “I have to go.”

“Okay?” And it’s not like Bucky hasn’t expected this kind of thing. Sure, Steve’s been hovering over him like a mother hen, seemingly afraid that Bucky might disappear again if Steve looks away for more than a few minutes (and Bucky wants to bristle under the attention sometimes, wants to snap his teeth and insist he doesn’t need babysitting, but he knows bone-deep that if the situation had been reversed, if he’d watched Steve fall and woken up in the present with no one, he’d be the exact same, so he can’t bring himself to do anything but indulge Steve’s urges.)

But Steve has a life, presumably, and Bucky’s expected that to pop up _eventually._

“It’s Avengers stuff. Some sort of problem with a robot? I don’t know the details yet, but I’ve got to go. It’s important,” Steve says, and Bucky’s not sure who he’s trying to convince more, Bucky or himself.

Bucky smiles at the idiot, feeling the tug at his cheeks and the realness of it, the way Steve seems to grow a little less tense at the sight of it, “Hey, pal, I get it. You’re still a card-carrying super hero. Go save the world. I think I can handle a few days alone in your apartment without burning the place down.”

Steve looks skeptical, but then his phone makes that obnoxious siren noise again, apparently reminding Steve that there’s more pressing matters than his brainwashed werewolf best friend.  

“Okay,” Steve says, and then, “Okay. I’m going. If you need anything, or if something happens or-”

“ _Steve,”_ Bucky says, grabbing Steve’s shoulder and squeezing tight, making him focus on Bucky. 

“Yeah?”

“ _Go,”_ Bucky says, and Steve, for once in his goddamn life, listens.

 

Bucky learns that there are three very frustrating parts of Steve being gone:

The third most frustrating thing about Steve being gone is that Bucky realizes pretty damn quickly he’s actually gotten used to Steve and his constant effort to not hover that really just ends in it being excruciatingly apparent just how much he _is_ in fact hovering.

The second most frustrating part of Steve being gone is how fucking _worried_ Bucky is about him. He ends up spending a good chunk of the time Steve’s away curled up into his wolf form, watching the news as they get shaky footage of Steve being the biggest idiot in the fucking world and throwing himself straight into danger.

The _most_ frustrating part of Steve being gone? The fact that Bucky can’t stop the way it feels wrong to watch him out there, with no one watching his six- without _Bucky_ watching his six.

 

When Steve gets home he’s still in his uniform, holding his side in a way that speaks of the fact that he got hurt bad enough for even the serum to have not healed him entirely yet.

He watches as Steve picks his way across the bare, wood-paneled apartment floor carefully, wincing a couple times and pretending like he’s doing nothing of the sort in a way that sends Bucky’s brain straight back to the 19fucking30s and Steve pretending he _didn’t_ get hurt too badly by a couple’a idiots twice his size who had been wrong enough about something important enough that Steve had had to go and run his mouth.

The memory hits like a goddamn freight train, the way the memories always do. (And Bucky doesn’t think about the comparison. Doesn’t think about _trains_ and Steve’s face, so very open and terrified just above his outstretched hand.)

“I’m going with you next time,” he says finally, trying to shake away the image of Steve, small and sharp, his arm wrapped carefully around his hurting side overlaid over the Steve of now doing the same damn thing.

“Thought you didn’t want to fight anymore. Think I remember you saying something about that awhile back,” Steve says, wincing as he undoes the top of his uniform. He must have come straight from the fight instead of taking the chance to stop at Stark’s fancy tower for a shower or medical help. The fact that he was in a rush to get home, to _Bucky,_ lights something up in Bucky that he chooses not to examine too closely just yet. Maybe later, when Steve doesn’t smell of blood and ash and a fresh fight in a way that makes Bucky want to hunt down whoever drew that blood.  

“Let me help you with that shit,” he says, pulling off the over part of the top of Steve’s uniform with perfunctory hands, leaving him in the stretchy compression shirt he wears underneath. “And I know what I told you, but clearly your ass doesn’t have anyone worth a damn watching your back and you’re too much of an idiot not to need it.”

He thinks maybe he sounds fond when he says that, _teasing,_ like the old Bucky Barnes might have. Judging by Steve’s snort he certainly does. _Good,_ Bucky thinks. He hopes he does. He certainly _feels_ fond when looking at Steve Rogers and his dumb, beat-up face with his stupid crooked nose. It’s the sort of feeling Bucky knows the soldier didn’t get to have, the sort of thing he wants to squirrel away like some sort of animal hoarding bits and pieces to keep themselves warm during the winter.

“Yeah, sure, okay,” Steve says, leaning into where Bucky’s hands have landed on his biceps, his head dropping onto Bucky’s shoulder like all his strings have been cut and the exhaustion of the fight has finally hit. “I’ll introduce you to the team. You might have to fight Clint for the spot as sniper though.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Bucky says, and then, shoving Steve down into the couch, “Go on, shift and go to sleep. It’ll help.”

“I should shower,” Steve says, but even Bucky can tell it’s a token protest by the way he follows Bucky’s shove and sort of flops back onto the couch like a dead fish.

“Shower tomorrow. Sleep tonight.”

“Funny, I remember my ma being a lot shorter and less,” Steve waves a hand sort of vaguely, “metallic.”

“Callin’ me your ma is the best you can do, Rogers?”

“I’ve been awake for uh- how long have I been awake for? Too long, anyways. I’ve been awake for too long, cut me some slack. I can’t be a beacon of wit all the time, Buck.”

“That implies you’re a beacon of wit anytime, pal,” Bucky says, squishing himself onto the couch right alongside Steve. It’s a tight squeeze, but once they both shift it should be fine.

“I’m telling the whole world you’re being rude to an American hero,” Steve says around a yawn, muffling the sound into Bucky’s shoulder and then leaving his face there.

“Can’t have that, they’ll lock me up and throw away the key,” Bucky jokes, twisting until he’s facing Steve, his arm draped over Steve’s side, carefully below where Steve had been cradling it earlier.

“Mmmhmm,” Steve hums out, and Bucky can already hear him drifting, whatever adrenaline that had been keeping him upright flagging in the face of a comfortable couch and a warm body next to him. “Dont’cha know, I’m a national treasure.”

He’s already drifted off by the time Bucky agrees, and it’s not until Bucky’s about to fall asleep right alongside him that he remembers they’d intended to shift first.

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

When Steve wakes up, it’s to the sight of Bucky, and more specifically, Bucky’s chest in front of him. It is, of course, a _problem._

And really, the problem, of course, with Bucky being back in general- and really, Steve hesitates to call it a _problem_ because Bucky being back is a miracle, and Steve’s not sure what he’s done to deserve it. But _still_ , the problem remains, that Steve has been more or less hopelessly in love with the guy since he was sixteen years old.

It’s possible that he’s had more than enough time to spill that fact since then, but, well, Steve’s especially hard to kill and old habits seem to die even harder.

And now Bucky’s there, whole and healthy and with enough issues to fill the grand canyon, and Steve can’t go messing with that by spilling his inconvenient feelings all over him.

It’s just that that’s a little bit harder when Bucky’s always _there._ When Bucky’s _right there,_ pressed up against Steve on a too-small couch, solid and there and _real._

Steve should get up. Steve should wake Bucky up. Steve should do anything that isn’t staying right where he is, watching Bucky like a goddamned weirdo, carefully categorizing the soft sweep of his eyelashes across the tops of his cheeks, the slack curve of his mouth and the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

The sun through the window casts everything in a glow and Bucky shifts a little in his sleep, his arm squeezing around Steve a little tighter. It saps Steve of any strength he might have had to get up, and he lets himself give in, to tuck his head into the curve of Bucky’s shoulder and breathe in the scent of _pack_ and _home_ and drift back to sleep for just a little longer.

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

Weird scientists make an attempt at destroying the world a few weeks later and Steve, of course, has to go help stop them.

Bucky says, “I’m coming with you,” and Steve says, “Are you sure?” and Bucky glares at him and Steve stops himself from double checking on account of the fact that Bucky’s mutinously shoving his legs into a pair of tac pants and pointedly attaching guns and knives to various points on his body.

Steve is a lot of things, but an idiot isn’t actually one of them, so he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t ask again.

And it’s good. That’s _the_ _thing._ Having Bucky there, fighting with him, watching his six, it’s _good._ He can tell that the others are wary, at least outside of Sam and Nat and strangely enough, Clint, but when idiots in yellow suits are unleashing some sort of mutated dinosaurs onto the world it becomes an all capable hands on deck situation and no one can muster the energy to thoroughly question the guy with the metal arm shooting hostiles over Steve’s shoulder.

At least not until one comes straight at Steve and suddenly there’s a blur of fur launching itself over Steve, smashing into one of the creatures in a flash of teeth and claws- both metal and not.

“Wait, wait, did murderbot just go full Fido?” Tony’s voice rings through Steve’s earpiece, doing that thing where he’s surprised but absolutely won’t admit it so he’s going to turn it into a joke.

“The Winter Soldier’s really just The Chillest Doggo,” Clint mutters and then Steve can hear him swearing and the distinct sound of him beating something physically with his bow.

“Does this mean Steve’s actually Timmy in the well?” Tony sounds delighted, and Steve glances towards the sky in hopes of spotting him so that he can flip him off properly, but then there’s a whirlwind of fur and metal slamming itself into the mess of scales and something that’s _definitely_ spitting some sort of substance that melts whatever it comes into contact with in front of him.

There’s a blur of fur shifting to flesh and a “Jesus fucking christ Rogers, keep your eyes on the goddamn fight,” before Bucky’s slamming the butt of his gun into the top of a head and Steve’s slamming his shield into another.

“Cool Paw Luke’s got a point, grandpa.”

“Shut the fuck up, Stark,” is all Bucky really offers- to Tony’s dismay, if his wounded noises are to be believed- before Bucky’s twisting into his wolf again, sharp teeth ripping into surprisingly sturdy dinosaur flesh.

Steve doesn’t spend a moment to admire the smooth transition between Bucky’s human and wolf, but that’s mostly because he’s too distracted with the fight and not getting bitched out by Bucky for getting distracted.

 

When the fight’s over and they’ve rounded up the last group of idiots bent on world domination as well as the last few remaining acid spitting dinosaur _things_ , they end up at some Thai place that’s stayed open through the wreckage that is now a good chunk of Queens.

“So, Steven,” Tony starts, clicking his chopsticks at Steve, and Steve does his best not to sigh _too audibly,_ “you didn’t ever mention to us your long-lost best bud came back from the dead, or rather the kennel. Think maybe you’ve been forgetting that in the Avengers group chat, and honestly, I’m kind of offended. You think we couldn’t handle good ol Balto coming back into the fold? I’m hurt. Wounded, even.”

“Sorry, was a little too busy with my best friend coming back from the dead and then having to save the world constantly to make an update to the group chat on every little detail of my life,” Steve says and then, “Someone pass the spring rolls,” in what is absolutely an attempt to move past this.

“Is it because you don’t understand how to use the group chat yet? Because they make classes for senior citizens on how to use these things, you know. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Steve.” Tony pairs the words with a patting hand to Steve’s shoulder that only stops at the just barely audible growl that emanates from Bucky at the motion,  “Okay, okay, Barky Barnes here is clearly fulfilling his job as guard dog. Down, boy.”

Bucky’s gaze swivels off of Tony and onto Steve as he not so subtly scoops half his pad kee mao off of his plate and onto Steve’s. Steve, because he’s a polite not-quite-human being, kindly doesn’t inform Bucky that he’s not even half as subtle as he thinks he is. “Does he listen to himself speak or does it all just fall out of his mouth without his permission?”

“As far as I can tell he’s the only one who listens to himself speak,” Steve says, unable to help the grin that spreads across his face at Bucky’s bark of laughter.

 

🐺⭐🐺⭐

 

Their life settles into a routine before Bucky has sense enough to even realize it. They spend their days like people instead of soldiers: they go to the market, cook dinner, and curl up in their- Steve’s- _their_ apartment with books or a whole century of entertainment to catch up on playing on the ridiculously large tv mounted to Steve’s white apartment wall. Eventually, something inevitably tries to end or conquer or just plain fuck with the world and inevitably they have to fight it.

Bucky knows he said he didn’t want to fight. Somewhere in those first few days after shifting back, when he’d still felt half terrified of every little thing, like HYDRA was just around the corner waiting to turn him back or like whoever the good guys were claiming to be these days might have the same goal dressed up in a better motive. He hadn’t wanted any of that, hadn’t wanted to coat his hands in more blood, to further another so called good cause.

It feels different now, though. Fighting with the Avengers. Doing something _good._

It feels less like being a fist and more like penance. Like something to start washing him clean of all the blood that’s built up on his hands.

The aftermath of a fight- this settles into routine too.

There’s one bathroom in the apartment, this place that Steve picked for himself with its bare white walls and its giant windows that let in the morning light, and so they switch off on showers, Bucky going first and already curled up with wet hair and a fresh new book propped open on his knees when Steve finally emerges from his own.

He watches Steve shuffle around the living room, unable to keep from taking in the low-hanging sweatpants that drag Bucky’s eyes down to where they slide over his hips, and the bunching of the white tank top that clings to Steve’s shower-damp skin.

Bucky can smell shampoo and blood where a solid whack to Steve’s face is still healing and something so very _Steve_ even from his spot on the couch.

There’s a part of Bucky that wants to tuck his face into the nape of Steve’s neck, or anywhere else where the scent of him is strongest, where he can breathe him in and run his hands along him to check for any injuries he might have missed.

There’s a part of Bucky that looks at Steve, traipsing around their living room and gathering take out menus so that they can order enough food to feed ten super soldiers, that part of him that looks at this man and thinks, _God, I know him,_ and it’s the part that knew him on the helicarrier with Steve’s face under his fist and Steve’s blood on his hands, and the part that knew him in a bank vault before Alexander Pierce scrambled his brains all over again. It’s all the parts of Bucky that would know Steve, deep down in the center of his goddamn weary bones, whether Steve was 6 pounds of fluff and sharp teeth, barking mad at the world, or a mountain of a man, his very own Atlas with the world held up on his shoulders.

“What do you want for dinner?” Steve asks when he catches Bucky staring, and Bucky takes a moment to curse Steve Rogers and his stupidly transparent face (“It’s not that transparent,” Natasha had said once, “You’ve just been staring at it for a hundred years,” and Bucky chose not to examine that too closely.)

It’s stupidly easy to read, to trace the lines like a map Bucky knows well and see the look on Steve’s face, like he’s still so stupidly surprised to look up for Bucky and find him actually _there,_ looking back _._ Bucky wants to say ‘take a picture pal, it’ll last longer.’ Bucky wants to sit up straighter, to preen, to wag a tail he doesn’t have right now, to roll over and show Steve his belly- show all the soft spots he can’t and won’t show anyone else.

Instead, Bucky says “Korean?” and Steve lights up like this- like feeding Bucky and watching whatever stupid documentary Bucky’s decided on watching later, is exactly what he wants to do with his night.

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

“So,” Tony starts from where he’s perched on a rolling stool he’s dragged into Steve and Bucky’s dining room, tinkering in Bucky’s arm while Bucky very blatantly attempts to remain patient with the process, “I have a question-”

“No,” Bucky says before Tony can even get the words out fully.

“My question- and it’s a very important question, K-9-”

“The robot dog from Doctor Who?” Bucky asks.

“Yes- Wait, are you spending your downtime catching up on _Doctor Who?_ You just ignored all my great advice and skipped over _Star Wars_ like a _criminal_ and were like _you know what I need to watch? Old British sci-fi?_ Wait, no, never mind, my question is more important. Why, pray tell, does dear Steven here refuse to show us his probably very impressive wolf form? We all thought it was some old timey modesty thing-”

“We didn’t think it was old timey modesty, Tony,” Natasha says from where she’s wrapped herself into something more burrito than human in three different blankets stolen from around Steve’s apartment. Steve’s pretty sure there are places for Avengers to congregate that _aren’t_ his fairly small Brooklyn apartment, but they’re all squished into it while Tony works on Bucky’s arm regardless of that.

Tony, predictably, barrels right on past Natasha’s correction. “We figured it was just the old timey, time-travelling Lassie thing, but you _clearly_ have no issue with it, so what’s the deal, from the source. Or from the justice-filled man’s best friend so to speak.”

Steve groans, burying his face in his hands so he doesn’t have to witness the absolutely _delighted_ look that’s crossing Bucky’s face at this line of questioning.

“No, we’re not talking about this-”

“He’s _embarrassed,”_ Bucky crows, and Steve can’t help but look back up, to watch the play of expressions across his face, the way he’s lit up all over. “Which is ridiculous because he’s-”

“Don’t say it-”

“ _-adorable,”_ Bucky finishes, brushing right past Steve’s words and practically vibrating in his seat. Or at least the part of him that doesn’t have Tony Stark rooting around in it still is practically vibrating.

Steve’s glad Bucky’s recovering enough that he’s got his sense of humor back and all, but god, at _what cost?_

Tony lifts the goggles off his eyes until they’re in the nest of his hair, flicks the panels of Bucky’s arm closed and sits up straighter. “Explain, Kujo.”

“Or we could respect my privacy and not-”

Steve attempts to halt the conversation, but Natasha has clearly become intrigued enough to stop her napping and Sam has clearly stopped pretending to ignore them in favor of a book, because in an almost creepy unison they finally both pipe up with, “No, no, _explain.”_

“You ever seen a pomeranian?” Bucky asks, eyes lighting up the way they used to when he’d get going on a really good story, the kind of story that would have people leaning in, on the edge of their seats. Steve is real happy for him to be discovering these parts of himself again, but he wishes it was a _slightly_ less embarrassing subject.

“I’m _not_ a pomeranian,” Steve insists.

“Sure, sure,” Bucky says, waving a hand vaguely in Steve’s direction. “You’re a werewolf through and through, Rogers. But you _look_ like a goddamn pomeranian.”  

“So he’s a massive fluffball? That’s not exactly embarrassing,” Tony says, sounding much less interested now that he’s apparently come to the conclusion that Bucky just means _fluff wise_ and not _size_ wise.

“Oh no, not massive. Tiny. Teeny tiny. Practically house cat size.”

“I’m not house cat sized!” Steve feels like his argument would be a lot more effective if he could muster up a glare, but he’s not nearly bothered enough by what’s happening to _really_ get mad about it.

“Prove it,” Natasha says, half her mouth quirked up in amusement and no small amount of challenge.

Which is exactly how to get Steve to do exactly what she wants him to. And Steve knows she knows that. Still, Steve barely even thinks about it before he’s shifting, landing on the floor on four white fluffy paws and pulling all of the less than ten pounds of his werewolf form up into a challenging glare back at Natasha.

He is _not_ the same size as a house cat, dammit.

There’s a strangled noise from across the room, followed by the sound of Sam’s laughter, rich and something Steve would normally like if it weren’t clearly a reaction to the sight of Steve.

“Holy shit,” Sam says, and then _delighted,_ “Holy _shit._ You look like my nana’s dog. This is incredible.”

“Yeah, funny that, when they gave him the serum it only really worked on the human bits.” Bucky, whose reaction to Sam thus far has been standoffish at best, and like a wolf whose territory has been invaded at worst, sounds _amused,_ the _asshole_.

Steve growls a little, nothing serious but enough for Bucky to know he’s definitely just earned a spot on Steve’s shitlist, (a list that takes significantly less time for Bucky to get off of since he’s back, honestly) and then there’s hands scooping him up and Natasha’s sharp fingernails scritching at his ears in the best kind of way.

“ _Adorable,”_ Natasha says above him, and Steve would like to be irritated about being treated like a common _puppy_ and not the _fearsome magical beast_ that he actually is, but nobody’s actually scritched his ears since before the war when Bucky’s sisters would get ahold of him, and it feels _good._

“I bet he could fit in a bag,” Tony says, sounding delighted and reaching a hand out to join Natasha in petting him. Steve for his part, growls and bares his teeth until Tony snatches his hand back looking wounded and Natasha makes a smug little half laugh. “Or we could get him a muzzle to protect the masses from him.”

Steve would like to flip Stark off, but he’s lacking in fingers at the moment, so instead he twists around in Natasha’s grasp until he can see her properly, can take her in properly for the first time in this form.

The difference in senses between wolf and human aren’t necessarily better or worse. There’s some that will insist there’s a difference, just as there’s some that will insist the wolf form is the only _true form,_ but Steve’s always thought that was a load of nonsense anyways. If Steve was meant to be one or the other, human or wolf, 100% of the time, then he would be. The senses _are_ different however. There’s cues a set of human eyes and a quick-working human brain will pick up faster than a wolf’s, and there’s scents and sounds a wolf’s nose and ears will pinpoint without even trying.

It’s hard to lie to a wolf’s nose, and taking in Natasha with that wolf nose means he can smell the tinge of old magic, the same sort that lays hidden under all of Bucky’s more homey scents and wafts around his arm, the sort that speaks to the heritage of his arm more than the red star on it and his halted stories about how he got it ever will. She smells like smoke, like the changing tide, like the part of dawn when the stillness of the night swiftly changes into the business of the morning.

She smells and sounds like a _friend_ and Steve bumps his nose into her chin companionably, and Natasha pulls a face and ruffles his ears one last time before plopping him down onto the floor none too delicately.

Steve doesn’t prance back to Bucky, no matter what anyone insists, but if his tail swishes and he bounces _just a little bit_ as he crosses the room, well, that’s perfectly normal okay? He’s pretty sure anyone who appears to be more cloud than wolf would bounce at least a little. It’s _justified._

 

🐺⭐🐺⭐

 

It’s as though a seal broke somehow, and after that, Steve shifts more. _A lot_ more.

Which is great, really, _it is,_ because Bucky really does enjoy running around with Steve with them in their wolf forms, and he absolutely loves when he gets to spend the evenings curled around Steve in their wolf forms.

It’s even great that Steve seems to feel more comfortable shifting around his - their?- friends more now that they’ve gotten passed the initial teasing. Even if it sometimes sets Bucky’s teeth on edge when they do things like picking Steve up or petting at his ears and calling him cute. Steve doesn’t seem to mind however, in fact, he almost seems to enjoy the attention, and so Bucky does his best to not be bothered by it.

He can’t, however, seem to stop his reaction when Natasha jokingly says ,“Aw, we should find him a collar or something, make sure no one tries to steal you from the team when you’re wandering around” while scratching at the ruff of fur around his neck.

His reaction, in this case, being to growl low under his breath despite every intention _not to._

Steve, for his part, seems absolutely unbothered by the comment, butting his head into Natasha’s jaw affectionately, even.

It’s not a big deal. Not _really._ Even if Natasha _was_ serious, it _shouldn’t_ be any sort of deal for Bucky. Because even if collars are sometimes exchanged in the same way wedding rings are or the way selkies give their skins, they’re not always restricted to mates. Some people treat them like fashion statements, or gag gifts between friends, or any number of things.

And even if there wasn’t eight million possible reasons to give someone a collar these days, he has absolutely _no reason_ to be irritated at the thought of Natasha wrapping a collar around Steve because Steve-

Well-

Steve isn’t _his._ Isn’t his mate to get territorial about. He’s just a packmate. His best friend. His-

What?

What _is_ Steve?

Oh.

_Oh no._

It hits Bucky over the head like a goddamn sledge hammer- like Steve’s shield in a practice sparring session.

 _Of course._ Of _course_ this is why he feels like launching himself across the room and baring his teeth at Natasha over the thought of her putting Steve in a damn collar.

Bucky’s not an idiot. He’s not _Steve._ He might still be adjusting a little to the whole feeling like his own damn person thing, but he knows  what he’s feeling- he knows exactly what’s wrong here.

 _He_ wants to put a collar on Steve.

Oh. _Oh no._

 

🐺⭐🐺⭐

 

Bucky has seen a lot of the internet thanks to a combination of having too much spare time while recovering and Tony Stark, which means he knows enough to know he’s behaving like that one gif of the guy with the conspiracy theories connecting red string to everything when it comes to his new plan.

“What are you doing anyway?” Natasha asks when Bucky articulates this to her while shoving a notebook filled with half-formed thoughts and no small amount of gibberish in her direction.

“Planning how to make Steve fall in love with me,” Bucky says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It _should_ be.

“Steve is already in love with you.”

“Sure. Alright. Wooing him then. _Courting_.”

“Makes sense,” Natasha says in the way that Bucky’s learned actually means she thinks the opposite, but is withholding whatever judgement she might otherwise be making.

Bucky’s not about to say it, but he’s thankful.

“There’s just one problem.”

“Just one?” Natasha asks, eyebrow raised and somehow making the impression that she’s laughing at Bucky’s pain without actually doing anything of the sort.

“I don’t know how.”

“You mean you don’t have those memories back or?”

“No- I mean I have most of it back, I guess. There’s some missing, probably, but I’ve got _enough._ But how do people court _now?”_

“Barnes, far be it for me to give love advice, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter how people do courting these days. You’re trying to woo Steve, who is, in case you’ve somehow hit your head and forgotten everything again, from the same time you are. I’m pretty sure he’ll understand some old school courting methods.”

Which is… Well, it’s probably right is what it is.

So, while resolving to not let Natasha know she’s probably right, he decides to do exactly what she seems to think is correct here.

 

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

 

Bucky’s hair is longer than it’s ever been and Steve sometimes wonders if he’ll ever cut it again, go back to the way it used to be when Bucky would spend what felt like hours in front of the mirror, carefully styling his hair with product before he went out on a date with some green witch a block over.

There’s a selfish part of him, the part that enjoys when he gets to curl up on the couch with Bucky and comb his fingers through his hair, that doesn’t want him to ever go back, that would really enjoy watching it grow out until Steve can maybe oh-so-casually suggest that he ought to braid it back to keep it manageable- that he ought to let _Steve_ braid it back. As a _friend_ thing of course. A totally platonic, packmate helping packmate type braid.

As though Bucky has been reading Steve’s mind, he offers exactly that, striding across their living room after his shower, hair leaving wet patches along his shoulders where it hangs, his obnoxiously pink wet brush in hand that he shoves into Steve’s face pointedly.

Steve stares at it for a moment, brain seeming to be making some sort of high pitched tea kettle noise instead of _actually_ registering what’s happening in front of him.

“ _Steve,”_ Bucky says, seemingly impatient with Steve’s inability to actually _do_ anything, cheeks red and blotchy in a way that Steve assumes is from the hot water from his shower, “ _I need you to do my hair_.”

He seems strangely serious for what’s really a simple request. A simple grooming task that packmates do for each other all the time. (A simple grooming task that _mates_ do for each other all the time, Steve’s brain whispers traitorously to him.) But he practically deflates into himself when Steve agrees with a soft, “Sure, of course, Buck.”

Bucky folds himself onto the floor in front of Steve’s spot on the couch, and with his limbs all folded up like they are, knees practically to his chin with his arms tucked around his legs, he’s surprisingly compact for a guy who’s thrown on an impressive amount of bulk since he returned.

Steve turns the brush around in his hand a couple times, reminding himself that this isn’t nearly as important as his inner _everything_ wants to make it out to be. He’d done it for his ma all the time before she’d passed. Hell, he’d done more than enough hair to last a lifetime when he was touring with the USO girls after the serum. This isn’t _new._ This is perfectly normal for people who are _very platonically_ close to each other.

The reminding works perfectly fine up until the moment he makes the first pass with the brush, smoothing it carefully through Bucky’s mess of waves and Bucky exhales a sharp sigh, all his sharp lines going soft and pliant.

Steve’s used to the wanting by now, but god, does he _want._ He works the brush through Bucky’s hair slowly and meticulously, convincing himself he’s doing it purely to be careful, to make sure that Bucky, who has suffered so much pain while Steve was in the ice, doesn’t have to experience even a moment more, even if the pain is just Steve being too impatient with a brush. Really though, he knows the reason he’s being so slow, and it has almost everything to do with Steve wanting to draw it out, to exist in this moment with Bucky in front of him, soft and easy, the smell of the froofy shampoo he’s taken a liking for and something so very _Bucky_ wafting up at Steve with every pass of the brush.

 _Finally,_ Steve can spend no longer drawing it out and he sets the brush aside when he’s gone through all of Bucky’s hair several times and Bucky’s breathing has gone slow and steady.

“How do you want it?” Steve asks softly, feeling strange somehow breaking the silence that’s washed over them.

“However you want- Just want it out of my face.” Bucky says slowly, after a long moment where Steve would be convinced Bucky had fallen asleep under his hands if it weren’t for the slight unevenness to his breaths.

Steve hums an agreeing noise, tugging his fingers through Bucky’s hair as he considers it. He imagines Bucky’s hair all sorts of ways, in some of the simple braids Natasha wears her hair in often, and in some of the more intricate ones he’s seen in magazines and on the internet. Something simple might be best, though. Bucky can’t want to sit through Steve figuring out how to do something more complicated than a basic french braid.

He goes with that, plaiting the hair back, picking up small bits and working them into the braid as he makes his way back, tying it all off with the eye blindingly orange elastic Bucky pulls off his wrist when he’s done.

Bucky presses his hands to the braid, running his fingers over the the woven hair as he twists around to look up at Steve.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, unfolding himself from the floor. He twists around to look at Steve, something soft and unreadable playing across his expression before he’s wrapping his arms around Steve and dragging him close, repeating the “thank you” as he nudges his nose to Steve’s jaw in a way that if Steve didn’t know better could be construed as scenting.

Then, he steps back from Steve with a “Good night, Steve,” and disappears into his room, the door swinging shut behind him.

Steve presses a hand to his face where Bucky’s lips just were as he watches him leave, every single bit of him, wolf and human, surging with warm affection

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

Steve once told Sam the beds in the future were too soft. He still stands by that, mostly, but Bucky? Well, judging by the pile of blankets and pillows that has accumulated on the couch, Bucky feels mostly the opposite.

He doesn’t _really_ notice it though until Sam’s over and he takes a long look at the state of Steve’s couch before turning to look at Steve with a baffled look.

“Rogers, were you aware that your couch has grown an actual mountain of bedding on it?”

Steve blinks at the couch like it’s the first time he’s noticing it, which okay, it kind of is, “Huh. I guess it has. It’s great, right? Pretty sure Bucky’s finally getting used to the future,” Steve says, flopping right into the center of the impossibly soft pile of blankets and pillows.

Sam has that sort of look on his face that Steve thinks means he’s missing something critical but that Sam won’t explain because, ‘You’ve gotta figure your own life out Rogers, I’m not your damn therapist,’ which, _fair._

“Uh-huh. You sure that’s what it is?” Sam asks, settling himself into a much less pillow-filled but still very well-cushioned chair.

Steve frowns, not entirely sure what Sam is implying with that. “What else would it be?”

“You know what? I’m not touching that with a twelve foot pole, Rogers. You know the guy better than I do, anyway. Maybe this is just him getting used to the amount of options in bedding the 21st century has to offer.”

Steve really means to ask what exactly Sam means by that, but then Bucky’s back in the living room, making himself one with the pillows right alongside Steve and shoving a whole plate of cookies into Steve’s chest.

“Eat. They’re your favorite,” Bucky says, draping his legs across Steve’s lap like they belong there.

“All cookies are my favorite,” Steve insists, a cookie poised halfway between the plate and being shoved into his mouth.

“Exactly,” Bucky says, something almost a little smug in the tilt of his lips and the way he shoves one of the cookies from Steve’s plate into his mouth.

Sam, from where he’s made himself comfortable in a chair, looks very judgmental.

 

So that’s a thing. The blankets, and the baking, and the feeding, _and_ Sam and Natasha’s judgmental stares about it all. And once Steve has noticed, he can’t quite seem to _stop_ noticing.

There’s also the _decorating,_ both of Bucky himself as he seems to get more comfortable in his skin and develops tastes in specific hair products and either wildly nice or wildly ridiculous clothes, but also of the apartment itself.

Steve barely even realizes it’s happening until he walks into the apartment and realizes that in the past few months it’s gone from white-walled and fairly minimalistic (Steve would like to claim it was a style choice, but really, he’d just failed to see a point in decorating before Bucky came back if it was just him living there) to bright and cozy.

There are paintings on his walls, both ones Steve has done himself, and ones that Bucky must have picked out somewhere.

There are bookshelves that have somehow found a home along the walls to either side of Steve’s front door, and in those bookshelves are stacks upon stacks of books that Bucky has bought and placed alongside the ones that Steve had bought and left sitting in stacks on his living room table for months and months. There are even _knick-knacks_ on the shelves.

He has _throw pillows._

They have a whole cabinet dedicated to various pans used in baking. Steve could never have comprehended there being so many pans for that.

There are  even _plants._ Real ones! Not even the ones that are made of plastic that Steve sees in doctor’s offices these days, but real live plants.

Steve’s white-walled apartment has suddenly, without Steve even realizing it, become a home thanks to Bucky.

Steve’s not quite sure how to process it. He hasn’t had a place that felt so much like home since before the war when he and Bucky shared a tiny shoebox of a place.

He definitely gets a very suspicious lump in his throat at the mere thought of how none of this would have happened if Bucky hadn’t come home and decided to make _Steve’s home_ his own home.

It’s a dangerous reaction, the sort that makes Steve want to bury his face in Bucky’s neck and scent him until the whole world- or at least everything with a decent sense of smell- knows that they have a home together, that Bucky is Steve’s-

Except he very much can’t, because while they have a home together, Bucky is very much _not_ Steve’s, and ain’t that some sort of hell in its own way? Having the thing Steve’s wanted for almost as long as he can remember right in his grasp and knowing he can’t take it because it’s not actually what’s on offer.

Bucky’s making this his home because he _deserves_ a home and is finally getting a chance to carve one out for himself after all the bullshit he’s been through. And Steve? Well, Steve refuses to make that in any way hard for him by letting his feelings spill all over the place.

 

🐺⭐🐺⭐

 

The problem is that Steve’s dense as a box of fucking rocks. Bucky’s been pulling out all the stops! At first he’d assumed Steve knew, because he _had_ to know. He’d accepted Bucky’s offer for Steve to do his hair after all, and they were practically living in each other’s pockets. Hell, Bucky had fed Steve cheesecake off his own fork not two weeks ago! _He had to know._

Bucky’s decorated their _home._ He’s spent a lot of time lately lounging around the place in sweatpants that barely stay up over his hips and are at constant risk of falling down and _nothing else._ Steve _had to know._

Except he didn’t know. He _doesn’t know!_ He seems painfully and irritatingly oblivious to the fact that Bucky is attempting to court his big, dumb, blonde ass.

Bucky’s pretty sure the only thing he has left to do when it comes to traditional courtship behaviors is to go to the nearest forest, take down the biggest buck he can find to prove his worth, and leave the meat as a prized gift for Steve to find. Which is- just _no._ Bucky’s a man of the 21st century these days. A _city boy_ to his core. He doesn’t hunt for his own food. He gets it at the grocery store like everyone else.

So he goes for the modern, city dweller equivalent. Or at least as close as he can get while still cementing his point _._

He buys a whole cow at the butcher and then passive aggressively butchers the entire thing in their kitchen where Steve can find him while he does it.

It works, so in as much as Steve does in fact find him, and Steve very clearly realizes _something_ is going on, even if Bucky’s not sure he actually realizes _what._

“That’s- That’s a _cow_ ,” Steve says from the kitchen doorway, seemingly cautious enough to stay exactly where he is while Bucky is wielding a very sharp knife and the entire leg of a bovine.

Bucky blinks at Steve, dumbfounded by this moron he’s apparently in love with. The moron who braids his hair and whose bed Bucky has crawled into at least three times in the past week for nighttime snuggles, and who _still does not realize that Bucky is In Love With Him._

Bucky is maybe a little tempted to hit him with the leg of the cow, but he feels like that might not actually help in getting Steve to _catch on._

“Yeah, Steve, it’d seem like it is,” Bucky says instead of any of the many, _many,_ much more unflattering things about Steve’s intelligence that he would _like_ to say in this moment.

“Why… Why do we have a cow in our kitchen? Was it on sale?” Steve asks like the only reason he can see for Bucky purchasing a whole cow was that _it’s on sale_.

Bucky feels his left eye twitch.

Steve takes a slight step into the kitchen, clearly not sensing the very clear danger that is there thanks to his willful obliviousness to Bucky’s _very obvious courting methods._

“Yeah, Steve, it was on sale,” Bucky says, instead of explaining, which Natasha would say is half the problem here, but Bucky is not listening to _Natasha Romanoff_ when it comes to _courting._ Clearly, her ideas on how to court Steve are _terrible and wrong_ considering they boiled down to treating it like it’s still 1930.

He thinks he needs to turn to google this time, even though ‘ _How to court my dumb oblivious best friend who refuses to realize i’m courting him’_ doesn’t seem like a search likely to turn up very many results.

 

Bucky doesn’t turn to google. He’s tempted, but he decides he’s absorbed enough on the dos and don’ts of modern courting by copious media intake and watching his fellow Avengers flounder amongst each other and with others.

He can work out the Modern Approach To Wooing Someone with that information alone, he’s sure of it. Even if a lot of modern courtship techniques are baffling or not of use in his specific situation.

Texting, for one thing, seems to be the normal mode of courtship in this day and age, but he’s with Steve more than he’s not, so it honestly seems like a waste to text the guy when he could just say whatever’s on his mind from six feet away. Dirty pictures are equally as out, but for much more solid reasons of just being _not okay_ when unsolicited. Bucky doesn’t need to be a goddamn millennial to realize that much.

Really, he doesn’t stumble upon the perfect idea until he’s in the middle of some weird little shop with Natasha and a very shiny, _very nice,_ very sharp knife catches his eye.

“Very nice,” Natasha says approvingly when Bucky buys the knife, and really, Bucky can’t tell if knives are a modern courting technique or a _Natasha_ courting technique but does it really matter? Who _doesn’t_ like a knife? They’re practical _and_ shiny, which objectively means they’re the best of both worlds.

This one is _especially_ nice, even if Bucky’s pretty sure it’s a little cheesy. He’d known it was perfect when he’d seen it though, a pocket knife with a dark, glimmering handle with the silhouette of a howling wolf and the moon cycle on it in gold.

It’s _nice_ , and Bucky presents it to Steve with all the fanfare that a gift like this requires. Which in Bucky’s case means he presents it to Steve very pointedly over breakfast the next day and watches equally as pointedly as Steve turns it over in his hand, face crinkling through a series of vaguely confused expression.

“It’s great, Buck,” Steve says finally, and Bucky can tell he still _doesn’t_ _get it._ Steve _still_ doesn’t realize what this all is and Bucky’s tempted to put them both out of this misery by just blurting it out, but maybe there’s a reason Steve refuses to notice? And that’s just enough to stop Bucky from spelling it all out over breakfast.

“Let’s go out,” Bucky says, deciding straightforward is for the better here. Knowing Steve and how he’s reacted so far to all of Bucky’s _very obvious_ signs he _still_ won’t get it, so Bucky tries to be as clear as possible without being _completely fucking opaque._ “To a movie and dinner. Or dancing. Or Coney Island. Your pick, Rogers.”

All three used to be the typical Bucky Barnes standards for dates, so he’s truly amazed when what comes out of Steve’s mouth is, “That sounds real good, Buck. We haven’t done anything like that in ages. It’ll be nice to get out of the house for something that’s not superhero related.”

It’s too earnest to get irritated about, but Bucky does consider the possibility that hitting his own head against the hardwood of the table might be enough to knock him back into amnesia so that he can forget just how horribly oblivious his best friend is.

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

Steve doesn’t spend a whole twenty minutes before the day out with Bucky working on his hair no matter what Sam insists. He spends a _totally normal_ amount of time making his hair _presentable._ His hair is just hard to make look good. Yeah. That’s it.

Besides, it’s not a big deal to want to look good to go out. It’s not like either of them have been out much since the war, and Bucky used to love a night on the town so much that Steve wants to make sure it’s good for him.

“You all ready for your big date?” Sam asks from where his face shows in the tablet propped up on Steve’s desk because Steve had panic facetimed the poor guy when he realized his hair was not at all behaving.

“It’s not a date,” Steve insists automatically, smoothing out a particularly stubborn wrinkle that’s taken up residence on his nice shirt. Maybe he just needs to change shirts? To something free of wrinkles and also _better._ He looks like a complete tool, he’s sure of it.

“You’re getting real prissy about how you look for it to not be a date, Rogers,” Sam says and Steve scowls at him through the screen and is very tempted to pretend the battery is dying so he can get out of this conversation.

“It’s the first time he’s doing something like this since before the war. I just want it to be nice,” Steve insists, swearing he doesn’t sound nearly as defensive as he probably does. He pauses for a moment, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt. “You think he realizes this is kind of date like?”

Sam makes a noise like he’s dying and Steve’s the one killing him, but Steve feels no pity when he’s the one about to go on a not-date with his best friend and also the person he’s been in love with since he was sixteen. He’s pretty sure he’s got the worse end of the deal here.

“I’m hanging up on you,” Sam says.

“That’s not an answer!” Steve insists, but it’s too late. Sam has, in fact, hung up on him, the asshole. Steve feels immeasurably fond of him for his assholeish ways, for some reason.

 

It takes Steve much longer than he would like after that to _actually_ be ready, because he definitely gives in and changes his shirt five times and his pants twice. He does, however, end up ready, and he would very much like to stress this, he ends up ready _before_ Bucky does, so he’s counting that as a win and a sign that he’s not actually being entirely ridiculous about the whole thing.

Of course, Bucky erases any thoughts of winning _anything_ when he finally ventures into their living room and Steve’s brain short circuits. He _should_ look ridiculous, because his shirt is some sort of sheer daisy-printed monstrosity with a lightweight leather jacket over top of it and his jeans are a dark wash that looks painted on, _especially_ in the thigh area.

Steve maybe gets stuck staring at the exact spot where if Bucky’s jacket moves he might see a nipple beneath the sheer printed fabric until Bucky very pointedly clears his throat and Steve’s eyes snap back to his face.

“You ready?” Bucky asks, and Steve nods a little, attempting to get his brain into working order.

 

They see a movie, but Steve couldn’t possibly tell you what one it was, because he gets too distracted watching Bucky’s expression while he watches it, and feeling the warm line of Bucky’s body in the seat next to him, the way little pieces of his hair escape the confines of the fancy little half-up braided thing he’s done to it and fall into his face.

At some point the movie ends, or at least Steve presumes it does. He’s mostly aware of the way the light changes on Bucky’s face and the fact that after 100 years the depths to which he _feels_ things when he looks at this asshole should have gotten a little _less._ They should have mellowed, the want becoming a little less sharp in the absence of reciprocation. They haven’t however. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

And then, because he can’t be tortured enough with this date that he must constantly remind himself is not a date, Bucky says, “I thought we could go dancing next,” as he leads Steve out of the theater and towards the subway station.

 

Dancing is not something Steve has ever felt particularly proficient at, but Bucky has always been good enough at it to distract from Steve’s lack of skill during the times he’d drag Steve out on doubles or during the times when Bucky would play some sort of music in their apartment and insist that Steve join him. Plus, as Steve is learning while watching the press of bodies at the club Bucky dragged him into, people in the 21st century don’t _dance._

They sort of _grind._ Together. In a mass of people. A sweaty, very close, mass of people who are all over each other. The way Bucky will be all over other people the second he ventures out to join them. Where Bucky will inevitably end up sweaty, with his sheer shirt probably sticking to him and-

Oh.

Oh _no._

Steve can’t imagine this going well at all.

“Stop looking at the dance floor like it’s the circles of hell,” Bucky says, like Steve is being an idiot about this all and then drags Steve right into the midst of it all without so much as a by your leave.

He’s not sure what he expects exactly, but it’s definitely not Bucky picking up on how to do whatever this even _is_ within about fifteen seconds and that figuring it out would involve Bucky’s hands on _Steve_ while he does something with his hips that Steve is pretty sure is meant to be done while in a horizontal position normally.

A horizontal position that Steve has no business thinking about Bucky in.  

 _"Relax.”_ Bucky’s voice is loud in Steve’s ear above the music, his hands moving to Steve’s hips and giving their best effort at getting Steve to move to any sort of rhythm. “Just move to the music, Rogers.”

“I’ve got two left feet, remember?”

“This doesn’t require that much skill with your feet,” Bucky teases, and his breath is warm on Steve’s ear, the scent wrapping around Steve even amidst the crowd of strangers pulsing around them.

Steve barks a laugh and tips his head back, angling his head to look at Bucky and they’re close, _so damn close,_ close enough that it’d be so easy to close the distance just that little bit, that Steve can almost trick himself into thinking the fond look on Bucky’s face is anything other than warm affection and friendship.

It’d be _so easy._

It’d also be a terrible idea, because Bucky’s not interested and Steve _knows that,_ and so instead Steve says, “Alright, alright, I’ll give you that,” and rolls his head forward again, doing his best to move to the music in the way Bucky’s directing and trying his best not to be affected by Bucky’s warm breath on the back of his neck.

 

🐺⭐🐺⭐

 

The full moon is bright and shining, hanging high in the sky over the two of them as they shift into their wolf forms in a wooded area just as far out of the city as they need to get to find enough distance to run.

Steve prances a little bit, dancing around in circles around Bucky that have Bucky snapping playfully at him before Bucky pounces and they give chase, eating up distance across the forest floor.

Bucky’s strides are longer than Steve’s by any measure of the matter, so one would normally presume that he’d outpace Steve easily, but Steve’s still a werewolf, no matter how small he is, supernaturally fast and wily as they make them, darting under brush that Bucky has to take time to leap over or go around and running through creeks, brushing against trees and doubling around whenever he gets out of Bucky’s line of sight.

It all means that it’s a _challenge._

A part of Bucky knows that it’s just the same thing they’ve always been doing. They’ve been playing chase since they were kids, scrambling around after each other while Bucky’s parents and Sarah ran circles around all of them. It shouldn’t feel any different, even if a much larger part of Bucky feels like it _is._ Like now that they’re grown the chasing means something different like it normally would when two adult weres give chase. Means proving himself, proving he’s worthy of Steve letting himself get caught, because god knows Steve is worthy of someone chasing after him.

There’s no paying attention to his thoughts, though, not when Steve goes barreling around a bend, slowing just enough as he goes that Bucky knows he can catch him, so he plants his paws into the ground and pounces, sending them rolling over dirt and leaves.

Steve seems smug at drawing the chase out so long, dancing around on his fluffy white paws and reminding Bucky much more of some sort of demented, hyperactive pomeranian than the noble werewolf Steve likes to claim he is. There’s no helping the fondness when faced with that, really, and when Steve sits, looking at him with bright eyes, he doesn’t even think of resisting the urge to lean in and nudge his nose to Steve’s forehead.

There’s calm for a moment, the moon bright above the two of them and Steve’s fur tickling at Bucky’s nose and Steve, _Steve, Steve_ filling all of Bucky’s senses, and then Steve gives a playful yip and they’re off again, skidding after each other through the woods.

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

Super soldier or not, werewolf or not, a night spent running around the woods with Bucky is a night that wears Steve out.

It’s the good sort of worn out though. The sort that leaves Steve finishing the night curled up with Bucky in a heap under the moonlight and waking up with his nose shoved into Bucky’s fur, the sounds of birds chirping and the forest coming to life around them.

Steve plants his paws into the dirt and pushes up, rolling his back into a long stretch as Bucky does the same.

And then, with the sun high in the sky and the satisfaction of a good night’s run thrumming through Steve’s bones, they make the trek back to the car and then home.

 

“We should do something fun,” Bucky says on the drive home while Steve fiddles with the knobs on the radio.

“We just did something fun,” Steve points out, gesturing vaguely behind the car.

“Well, yeah,” Bucky agrees, and a smile curls his face that makes something bubble up beneath Steve’s chest, something a lot like want, but also something an awful lot like joy and relief over the fact that he gets _this,_ he gets Bucky who smiles like he means it instead of the way he had when he’d first come back, Bucky who gets to smile _at all._

“I meant something fun that involves two legs instead of four,” Bucky finishes, breaking through Steve’s moment.

“Alright,” Steve says, and then, “Let’s do something fun. Anything you want.”

 

Steve, maybe, possibly, just a little bit, regrets agreeing to _anything_ Bucky wants, because what Bucky wants is apparently Coney Island.

As a werewolf Steve is sturdier than most humans. As a genetically-altered super soldier Steve is, at least according to scientists, the peak of physical perfection. He jumps out of airplanes without batting an eyelash and runs into burning buildings and fights super villains without thinking twice.

Despite all of this, he still thinks that roller coasters are truly, and deeply, one of Satan’s creations.

The Cyclone still leaves him woozy and puking into the nearest trash can, and now Coney Island comes with about a million different rides that make Steve yearn for the ground but that Bucky’s giant nerd heart apparently loves.

“You doin’ okay there Rogers?” Bucky asks, looking like he’s _enjoying_ Steve’s abject misery as he tries to calm the queasy feeling that stepping off the Zenobio has left him with.

“You’re such a jerk,” Steve says with a shake of his head, leaning heavily against Bucky when he wraps an arm around Steve’s shoulders and steers him away from the ride and towards what Steve assumes is his certain doom. Aka another ride.

“Really? Must be you rubbing off on me,” Bucky says and Steve shoves at him and then they’re stumbling along, shoving each other, and laughing and surrounded by people and rides it’s easy to feel a little bit like it did almost a hundred years ago when Bucky would drag Steve here.

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

Here’s the thing, the really big, absolutely massive thing:

Steve is not _actually_ as huge an idiot as he sometimes seems to be when he’s doing shit like jumping out of airplanes without a parachute or going at giant aliens with nothing but his fists.

It can take Steve a little longer to get where he needs to be, sure, but he’s been told a time or two that’s less stupidity and more willful, stubborn, ignorance and a refusal to let himself have good things. (His therapist is brutally honest. So are Sam and Natasha when they need to be.) But he _gets there._ Even if usually getting there involves less working the thing out logically and more the feeling like the thing he’s working out is hitting him upside the head like a bag of bricks out of nowhere.

Which is how he ends up halfway through his run, in the middle of stopping to order Bucky’s favorite bagels to take home, with the sudden and intense realization that _holy shit, he’s an idiot._

Because of course, _of course,_ he’s been absolutely and totally blind to what’s going on, because what’s going on is _exactly_ the thing he _wants_ to be going on.

He wants Bucky, wholly and deeply and more than he can really stand it, so he’s never, not a day in his goddamn life believed he could have him. Which is why it hits like a goddamn sledgehammer to the foot when he realizes that Bucky? Bucky has spent the last while showing Steve that he _can._

Hell, Steve even _smells_ like Bucky, which is another one of those sledgehammer-adjacent realizations. Bucky’s scent has sunk into Steve and wrapped itself around him like someone making a claim.

Steve takes the bagels when the cashier hands them to him and then, before he can even think to lose his nerve and convince himself that this is anything other than what it clearly is, rushes home.

 

🐺⭐🐺⭐

 

Steve, Bucky has learned through a lifetime of friendship, can be prone to making a dramatic entrance at times. Back before the war he would stumble in, bloody and bruised from some sort of fight his big mouth and inability to leave well enough alone had gotten him into, and now it’s much the same, except he’s fighting super villains instead of bullies.

So really, Bucky’s not surprised when Steve bursts through the door like the hounds of hell are on his tail.

What is surprising is when he advances on Bucky, determination etched into every one of his features, grabs Bucky by the front of his shirt, and drags him in for a kiss.

It’s quick enough that Bucky’s brain doesn’t have time to even process what’s happening, let along send the necessary signals to start kissing back and Steve jerks back like he’s burned, expression twisting into something that Bucky knows means he’s about to open his mouth and apologize. Which is dumb.

It’s stupid as hell, really.

So Bucky drags Steve right back in and kisses him again.

Kissing Steve is everything Bucky thought it would be and somehow a hundred times _more._

He kisses like Bucky is something he needs to grab onto with both hands, to _consume,_ to _love,_ and Bucky can’t remember experiencing anything quite like it.

Steve pulls back eventually, presses their foreheads together, keeps them close and breathing the same air.

“You’re in love with me,” Steve says.

Bucky thinks about saying ‘ _no shit, Sherlock,’_ about turning it into something light, something joking, but he can’t. Not when Steve’s there, looking at him with bright eyes, his mouth full and rosy from Bucky’s, his hands clutching tight at Bucky.

“Yeah,” he says, honest, “Yeah, I am.”

“Good,” Steve says, curling his arms tight around Bucky, dropping his head, pressing his face into Bucky’s shoulder, seeming to breathe him in, “That’s good.”

“That’s good,” Bucky repeats, grinning as he tucks his face into the side of Steve’s head, taking a chance to breathe him in just as much as Steve is doing. “Find out a guy’s in love with you and all you’re gonna say is ‘that’s good?’ I expected a little more drama here, pal.”

“Wasted all the drama during my entrance,” Steve jokes, and Bucky feels the brush of lips against his shoulder through his shirt, the way Steve’s arms squeeze a little tighter before he says, “I love you too. Have for a long time, Buck.”

“Well that’s good,” Bucky says, echoing Steve’s words mostly just to be a little bit of a shit, and then Steve knuckles into Bucky’s side. “It’s about time you finally noticed all my efforts. All of my _very obvious_ and _incredibly blatant_ efforts.”

Steve groans, thumping his forehead into Bucky’s shoulder lightly. “It only seems obvious _now.”_

“It’s okay,” Bucky says, smoothing a hand over Steve’s hair, unable to help the sort of smug satisfaction when Steve leans into it, “I’m apparently very tragically attracted to dumbass.”

“I hate you,” Steve says, and he’s so fond that Bucky’s sure if he paid attention to Steve’s heartbeat it’d be tripping over a lie.

 

🐕🌙🐕🌙

🐕🌙🐕🌙

🐕🌙🐕🌙

🐕🌙🐕🌙

🐕🌙🐕🌙

🐕🌙🐕🌙

🐕🌙🐕🌙

 

**_Epilogue_ **

🐦💫🐦💫

Sam’s phone rings at what is probably a completely normal time of day but that Sam is deeming an awful fucking time because he just got off of some Avengers nonsense in a different time zone that started with Tony Stark saying “Hey, you’ve got like, a bird thing right? You’re the bird guy?”

Sam ignores it, because he’s human and he’s sleeping.

And then it rings again.

And then, it rings _again._

Sam, with the sort of suffering borne of having Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff crash into what had been a somewhat quiet post-military life, answers his damn phone.

“I feel a disturbance in the force,” Natasha says.

Sam blinks, and then very clearly and with as much finality as he can manage in his half-asleep state, says, “Natasha I am _sleeping,”_ and hangs up on his friend.

 

A couple days of sleeping later and Sam manages to drag his ass to what is ostensibly an Avengers Barbecue. Sam doubts the validity of claiming it’s a _barbecue_ , but Tony and Clint _are_ doing something that involves fire and meat so he guesses it counts.

Sam for his part is avoiding what is definitely going to be a catastrophic event involving fire and resting his very human ass in a chair and drinking a beer because he has _earned_ this.

Natasha drapes herself down into a seat next to Sam, cradling what looks suspiciously like the whole container of the mac and cheese Sam had deposited on a table on the way in.

There’s silence between them for a long moment and Sam lets it wash over him, closing his eyes and tipping his head back to enjoy the sun on his face and the vaguely foreboding noises coming from where Tony and Clint are bickering about the best method with which to grill meat somewhere behind him.

Eventually Natasha interrupts by nudging her shoulder to Sam’s and then gesturing towards something she clearly thinks Sam needs to see.

The something being Steve and Bucky Barnes. They’ve got their heads ducked close together, clearly discussing something between themselves. They normally touch a lot more than anyone with a strictly platonic relationship could be expected to, but there’s something different about it today and Sam’s struck with a wondering of what exactly happened while he was away.

“Are they?” he asks Natasha.

“The disturbance in the force,” Natasha says seriously, but there’s a twitching to her lips that Sam thinks is amusement, or maybe happiness for her friends, or maybe all of the above.

“Thank _god,”_ Sam says and then raises his beer to Natasha. “To those two idiots not having their heads up their asses anymore, I guess.”

Natasha raises a forkful of macaroni. “To not having to hear about it anymore.”

“I can drink to that,” Sam says as he takes a drink from his beer and Natasha pops a bite of macaroni into her mouth.

“So,” Natasha says, turning so that she can drape her legs across Sam’s lap and offer Sam a bite of mac and cheese at the same time, “How was your little solo mission? I heard there were giant birds.”

“Don’t even get me started on the fucking _birds,”_ Sam says, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Steve Rogers tuck the hair of a soldier turned cyborg assassin turned superhero behind his ear with a softness that feels almost unbearable to see before he leans down to kiss him at the exact moment there’s the sound of an explosion and Clint Barton goes, “Aw, fire, _no.”_

**_the end_ **

**Author's Note:**

> AND WE'RE DONE. If you want to follow me on social media you can find me on twitter @attackofthezee and VERY infrequently on tumblr [here](https://stevergrsno.tumblr.com/) if you would like to check majel out you can find her and her stuff on twitter @itsmajel AND on tumblr [here!](https://itsmajel.tumblr.com/)


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